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Horror Shorts: The Birch (2016)

He who breaks me shall become undone!

Bullies suck. Few things are as satisfying as seeing a bully get punished, and if it’s a horror short… you know the bully is gonna get recompense in spades. This short film by Ben Franklin (no not THAT Ben Franklin) and Anthony Melton boils this down to its very essence. Part Blair Witch and part Pan’s Labyrinth, Franklin and Melton have taken a classic tale and put a nice coat of paper-white birch over it. Fantastic makeup and creative chunky gory bits highlight this award-winning effort.

This film was produced as a primer for the Eli Roth and Jason Blum creation Crypt TV, a horror video startup site that is producing short film original content, and developing the next generation of young horror directors and writers. According to the Los Angeles Times, Crypt TV is going to be creating properties with the primary distribution through digital media. Their target audience is young, and watching these films on their phones. The creators themselves are also a bunch of twenty-somethings all looking to do micro-budget short films and then graduate on to do Blumhouse ready feature films, and feeding Blum and Roth ideas for years to come. Think of it as Horror 101.

In our recent Episode XII podcast, Mike and I discussed Roger Corman’s legacy of mentoring the next generation of genre directors, and that we may not see the like of him again. I’m beginning to think that Blum and Roth might be the ones to pick up Corman’s torch. It’s a brave new world out there, and if you want to see what the future has in store, check out The Birch: